Hey guys, I created an M16 AA halftrack for the Americans. The M16 was like the M3 halftrack, only with a Maxson Mount in the bed. The Maxson Mount was an electrically traversed open mounting for 4 .50 M2 MGs. It was intended for low-level AA support, but due to the relative lack of german air power, was also used frequently in the ground support role.

Over 3000 were produced, and they were used almost exclusively in Europe. The crew consisted of a driver, commander, gunner, and two loaders, and it carried 5000 rounds of ammo.

Oh, and it's a total trip to see it in action! It puts out crazy firepower and sounds awesome, too! Oddly, it has the same point value as the M3A1 halftrack.

I presume it costs more in points. If it is taken out, many eggs in that basket were broken at once. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Knut, I think this is great and is another instance of soldiers using equipment for what it's good for as well as what it was designed for.

I tried your other halftrack mod. It is not working yet as I get messages about .bmp files missing. One amusing effect was the HT was there, but invisible! hahaha I think the enemy could still see it tho.

I tried this one and got "invalid nationality=american". Now how can that be invalid? I have compared your file with the FF original and it looks right to me.

Okay, I have been playing this for some time now, and I find it works rather well! It gets destroyed as often as any other halftrack - panzerfausts, guns, etc. (Though I agree that all "open top" vehicles should be able to be destroyed by regular grenades!)

Here is the file again, cut and paste. I created new .txt file under "tanks" and gave it title: "American-M16-Halftrack.txt" (I kept M3 halftrack as is.)

I presume it costs more in points. If it is taken out, many eggs in that basket were broken at once. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Knut, I think this is great and is another instance of soldiers using equipment for what it's good for as well as what it was designed for.

I tried your other halftrack mod. It is not working yet as I get messages about .bmp files missing. One amusing effect was the HT was there, but invisible! hahaha I think the enemy could still see it tho.

I tried this one and got "invalid nationality=american". Now how can that be invalid? I have compared your file with the FF original and it looks right to me.

keep on modding! cheers.

Jean Boule, I just realized that you were refering to my M3A1 mod that wasn't working, not this M16 mod. Here is the M3A1 again. I will also check the other thread to see if it is correct.

Thanks for your reply. I have tried both mods and they are not working on my system. I cut and pasted as you said and have tried replacing, in the case of the turreted halftrack, and adding a new file, as with the M16.
When Firefight is started, I get this message

unknown nationality. nationality=American. I press OK
I then get "cant find file car_halftrack.bmp" I press OK
I then get "cant find file car_halftrack_mask.bmp" I press OK
I then get "cant find file picture_halftrack.bmp" I press OK

These files all exist in the C:\Program Files\Firefight\Graphics folder.

I presume you created your files in the first place by editing the original txt and saving as the new names. So I cant see how these entries can be wrong.

I would love to see your mods in the game.

I have an idea for another. Take some small vehicle, and modify it to give a high road and cross-country speed, and high vulnerability, that is thin armour. Add a HMG and a LMG (or 2) and call it a SAS jeep.

I decided to try my own suggestion. As soon as I looked at the files I decided to mod the Bren Carrier. I just changed the names, the weapons, made all the armour 1, and gave it high speed. Are these speeds kilometers per hour? To even things a bit I cut the ammo way down.

I'm not sure why it isn't working for you, Jean. I see that your SAS jeep works? Maybe you should just go to the data folder, then tanks, then go up to File - New - Text Document. Then give the file the appropriate name.tx, open it, and paste in one of my mods. I can't really think why else it won't work for you.

If this still doesn't work, just keep my mod open on your desktop, then go in and create a new .txt document just like you did for your SAS jeep, and type out your own version. Or just copy the existing 251 and M3 files in your system, then make the appropriate changes.

As far as your jeep goes, you should make it unarmored, with either a 0 or blank for those fields, since the crew was totally exposed. Also, since the AI registers your jeep as a "tank," enemy infantry will never fire at it, making it indeed invulnerable to all but atgs. All vehicles appearing the same to the AI is just a quirk of the game. I have had the M3 and 251 go right by each other without bothering to shoot each other without me making them, and then of course having no effect, when in reality the .50 cal on the M3 would penetrate the 251's armor at such close range.

Oh, and as an aside, I changed my Bren carrier settings to make it exist for the British and Canadians through the end of 1944, as they were used then.

JeanBoule wrote:I decided to try my own suggestion. As soon as I looked at the files I decided to mod the Bren Carrier. I just changed the names, the weapons, made all the armour 1, and gave it high speed. Are these speeds kilometers per hour? To even things a bit I cut the ammo way down.

saved in C:\Program Files\Firefight\Data\Tanks
as British-SAS-Jeep.txt

The graphics do not look right of course. They come out ridiculously cheap, less than a squad of paras!

I tried it in a game 1944, france, villages, brit attascks Germans.

I won in 3 minutes. They are great for the charge vehicles up to the objective strategy. One got zapped of course.

Oh - it crashes thru buildings in a very unrealistic way!

cheers

Jean, I just noticed that in this file for the Bren Carrier bmp's is "car_sdkfz251" German halftrack rather than "tank_brencarrier" and couldn't figure out why that was. Then I checked my file and it was the same! My Canadian Bren Carrier had the correct bmp "tank_brencarrier.bmp" and tank_brencarrier_mask.bmp" however.

That seems to be a definite weird bug! I will send an email to Sean so he can correct this for the next update.

I have played as the USA and had a couple of M16 Halftracks. They did seem to beat down the enemy better than HMGs which have all those issues of control we have talked about. I will publish the results later if you wish.

I decided I needed to know what it was like on the receiving end. I removed all american tanks except the M16 from the tanks folder. This forces the AI to have only M16s. Then I played germans defending against americans. The germans had panzerfausts. Actually my soldiers did not get slaughtered, but they were mostly suppressed which allowed a tank rush to get to the objective. The panzerfausts got a couple, but the sheer numbers of M16s won the day.

I replayed and this time gave myself anti-tank guns. This shows the result.

(edit: it worked in the preview. Try here:http://www.angelfire.com/mech/inf0/scrin/34v5.jpg
Hmmm I cant get it to light up. I have HTML OFF and cant find where to turn it on).
the plumes of smoke along the hedge line are the M16s brewed up by the anti-tank guns, one at bottom left and one in the centre just under "mission over".

Result Victory in 15min. me 3kia,3wia,38survived out of 44.
americans 48k,12w,42s / 102. 12 afvs lost
the enemy's 48 kia would be mostly from the M16s, which have a crew of 5.

I played again after moving Shermans back into the tanks folder. The AI did not choose to use M16s. They used 3 Shermans. They won by shooting out the antitank guns before their rush.